Aprilia's Max Biaggi won his second World Superbike Championship crown today at Magny-Cours by the narrowest-ever margin, doing just enough in for fifth place in race two to give him the title by just 0.5-points ahead of Tom Sykes who won the second outing.
Sykes took the race by the scruff of the neck and did everything right, surrendering the lead only once to eventual third-placed man Sylvain Guintoli on the opening lap and then controlled it from the front with Jonathan Rea getting the better of Guintoli with three to go.
Biaggi only needed to finish the race in fifth place should Sykes win. The Roman Emperor made a slow start and made a couple of mistakes early on but made his way through and passed Althea Ducati's Davide Guigliano for the place and then pulled a gap to make sure no-one had the chance to either get back past or nerf him off.
Team-mate Eugene Laverty, racing in fourth behind Guintoli and Rea, was given a team orders board with a few laps to go but it wasn't required. Biaggi was very emotional in parc ferme, sporting a celebratory Suomy crash helmet, and you have to wonder whether this is the Italian's last hurrah...
"Psychologically, it was very tough. I still don't know what happened in race one as I wasn't too hard on the brakes. Race two it was a drying track, which is the most difficult. But I'm here, I'm happy but not to take anything away from Tom. It was my time but next it will be his time," said Biaggi.
Marco Melandri, who had an outside chance of the title, was spat over the highside of his BMW S1000RR on lap five and Loris Baz came out in sympathy and had the exact same crash behind him. Chaz Davies fought through the pain of his race-one crash to finish in eighth and Leon Camier did the same for tenth. Leon Haslam tumbled out of contention with eight laps left.
